


The Problem with Almost

by remreader



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Nightmares, Pepper Potts Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24600046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remreader/pseuds/remreader
Summary: Pepper accidentally wakes Tony up after a nightmare.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 89
Collections: Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019, Pepperony Bingo 2020, Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	The Problem with Almost

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write a Pepper-having-a-nightmare fic for a while now, and this is the result! Hope you enjoy it :)
> 
> Title: The Problem with Almost  
> Collaborator Name: newnewyorker93  
> TSB Card Number: 3081  
> Squares Filled:  
> • Tony Stark Bingo: adopted square - flashbacks  
> • Pepperony Bingo: B1 - sharing a bed  
> • Ladies of Marvel Bingo: M1 - sleepy confessions  
> Main Pairing: Tony Stark/Pepper Potts  
> Rating: Gen  
> Major Tags: Nightmares, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort  
> Summary: Pepper accidentally wakes Tony up after a nightmare.  
> Word Count: 1846

_It starts the way she remembers it. They're all standing out on the lawn outside the compound, watching the impossible sight of Carol Danvers, glowing like a supernova with a spaceship held aloft in her arms. There's that same familiar churn of hope and dread in the pit of her stomach, the same anticipation as the ship is lowered to the ground and the door opens. And that’s where the road diverges, because this time there’s only one set of feet stepping out into the cold night air. Tony looks so small, carried in Nebula’s arms. Still and quiet, too quiet and it’s_ **_wrong_ ** _because Tony’s never that silent, not to Pepper, even when he doesn’t say a word._

 _The world starts to shift and blur around her and none of this is real, she knows it isn't, knows it_ **_can't_ ** _be, but it hurts so much and she can't make it stop. She’s crumbling to dust, a few weeks late._

_She screams and a hole opens in the sky with the stars bleeding through and Tony's falling too fast or maybe she is, falling into the flames again. She lands on a rooftop, shattered glass crunching beneath her feet and hears her own voice shouting Tony’s name as she watches the light embedded in his battered armor flicker once, twice, and then everything goes dark._

* * *

Pepper jolted back into consciousness, her heart pounding almost painfully in her chest. She could feel a weight pressing against her - Tony’s arm, still draped loosely over her waist; they must’ve fallen asleep still curled up together - and reality slowly started to sink back in. She wasn’t at the Compound, or New York, or at the old reactor site back in Malibu. She was safe in bed and so was Tony, right where they both belonged. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down - _just another dream, get it together, Pepper_ \- and rolled over onto her side. There was the dark outline of Tony’s body lying next to her and - no, that wasn’t right… Pepper sat bolt upright, panic rising uncontrollably again. It was _dark_ in their bedroom, it was too dark, no, no, _no_. She shoved Tony roughly onto his back and started scrabbling at his chest, searching desperately for-

“Wha’ the…?” Tony mumbled groggily, blinking in bleary confusion as the sudden onslaught shook him awake. “Wha’s going on? Pepper?”

Pepper froze. Tony was fine, alive and well, a fact which, Pepper belatedly realized, feeling a bit foolish even as the last wisps of the nightmare kept her pulse pounding in her ears and her fingers trembling slightly where they gripped his shirt, made perfect sense given that he hadn’t need the arc reactor to keep him alive for nearly six years now. They sat like that for a moment, Tony pinned down under Pepper, until Tony got his wits about him enough to try and break the tension by quipping about their current position.

“I have to say, while not the _worst_ way I’ve been woken up, this-” he teased, wriggling slightly under Pepper’s hand for emphasis, “-is a lot more fun when I’m awake for the whole thing.” Pepper didn’t laugh or respond so he continued in a softer voice, “No? Not helping? Hey, what's wrong, honey? You don't have to throw up again, do you?" Tony asked, now sounding worried. "Because if you _are_ going to throw up I would very much like to request a change in venue. Or at least a basin right about here." He gestured to his face with the hand not currently trapped under Pepper's body. “Come on, pepper pot, talk to me. Please?”

Pepper's hold on Tony's shirt loosened and she sat back a bit on the bed. It was always hard to tell with Tony whether he was doing it on purpose or not but him being, well, his usual self _was_ managing to calm her down somewhat (which of course made her feel even more stupid about the whole thing). “It’s nothing, really. I just- I thought there was...a spider, crawling on you.” She invented lamely, giving his chest an awkward pat. “But there wasn’t and I didn’t mean to wake you up, so just...go back to sleep.”

Pepper moved to pull her hand away but Tony caught her wrist mid-motion and started toying gently with her fingers. “Hey,” he murmured, the joking tone gone from his voice. “It’s ok. I still forget sometimes too.”

"You...what?"

“I’ll dream I’m back at the mansion, and Ob- it all happens again, and then I wake up and the reactor’s gone…” He paused. “That’s the ‘spider’ you were looking for, right?”

Pepper nodded, reluctantly.

“Thought so. Here,” Tony took Pepper’s hand and slid it under his shirt so she could run her fingers across the rough circle of scar tissue covering his reconstructed sternum where the arc reactor had once sat, then pressed her palm down firmly over his heart. “See? It's ok. Everything working like it's supposed to. No batteries required.”

“I know.” Pepper sighed. “It’s not just that though. It’s-” she pulled her hand free from Tony’s grip and skated it back down his torso, her fingers brushing across ribs that were still just a little too prominent even months later and lingering on the puckered scarring over his abdomen commemorating the latest in a seemingly endless line of near-fatal incidents. His body was a map of them, jagged pale reminders of how she’d almost lost him so many times. “-everything.” She hesitated, then admitted in a barely audible whisper, "I saw your message, Tony."

"Message?" It took Tony a second to piece together what Pepper was referring to, but then he realized - the message he'd recorded for her on the _Benatar_ , when he'd thought that really was the end, that he'd never get to see her again. " _Oh_."

Pepper nodded. "Nebula showed me, while you were still- that first night back. And I just can't stop thinking about it, a few more hours..." A few more hours and she'd have woken up tonight in an empty bed with the broken promise of a Harry Win- _stone_ alone on her finger. It hadn't happened like that. But it almost did. And that's how it always was with them, wasn't it? A close shave, a narrow escape, a lucky shock to the system by a screaming Hulk. Eventually, she'd been thinking more and more lately, as the words from Tony's video - _one last surprise_ \- played over again in the back of her mind, you run out of almosts.

Pepper didn't quite mean for it to happen, but it all started spilling out; it's easier to say these things in the dark. She told Tony about her nightmares, all of them, the endless scenarios that played out behind her closed eyelids night after night. There were so many what _ifs_ , like a sadistic 'choose your own adventure' book where everything always led back to a literal dead end. Sometimes it was Rhodey calling from Afghanistan to tell her they'd found Tony too late; sometimes she found him herself, slumped over in his chair like so many other times he'd fallen asleep at his desk after too many hours tinkering, but with dark lines of palladium criss-crossing his body and not sleeping at all. Sometimes it was just watching Tony fall - the wormhole closing, their home tumbling into the ocean and then...nothing. No blinking light on an Iron Man helmet, no goodbyes, no closure. And on and on it went - the details almost didn't matter, she lost every time.

Tony stayed quiet as Pepper spoke, listening and rubbing her back soothingly while she got it all out, all her fear and anxiety about the fragility of their life together laid bare. And then, when she was finished, he whispered simply, “I’m sorry.” There was nothing else to say, really, nothing that wouldn’t be just an empty platitude; they both knew there’d be no stopping whatever might happen, one day. “Just...for everything. Dealing with all of this, with me, for all these years...I know it hasn’t been easy.”

 _Loving you?_ “Not always, no, but…” Pepper twisted the wedding ring on her finger, searching for the right words. She looked up and met Tony’s eyes in the semi-darkness. “Even- even on nights like this...it’s never stopped being worth it.”

Tony pulled Pepper down into a tight hug and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. They snuggled up together like that, Pepper’s head resting on Tony’s chest and his arms wrapped securely around her. There were promises that couldn’t be made about the future, true, but there was also right here, right now, and maybe that could be enough. They were quiet for a while, Tony playing lazily with Pepper’s hair while she tried to relax, to just focus on the comforting sensation of her body rising and falling slightly with his as he breathed in and out. She was feeling much better now, she really was, but there was a part of her that was still scared to go back to sleep, worried about where her unconscious mind would take her without her more rational side there to control it.

"Hey, Tony?"

"Hmm?" He responded in a lazy hum, sounding like he was halfway asleep himself.

“Could you-” Pepper asked quietly, a bit hesitant. She almost felt silly for asking, for _wanting_ but she knew Tony would understand. “-will you talk to me?”

“Sure, ok. I’m _excellent_ at that, one of my specialties. Talk to you about what?”

“It doesn’t matter, anything…” Pepper wasn't looking for a conversation, she just wanted to listen to his voice and let it lull her (safely) back to sleep. "Cars. Tell me about cars."

Tony laughed and Pepper could feel the motion of it rumbling through her as she leaned against him. "You don't care about cars. Like, at all. Your eyes glaze over when I talk about my cars. In fact I have been _specifically_ banned from bringing up the subject…"

“Perfect topic then.”

“Ah, I see how it is - using me for my body again?”

Pepper turned her head slightly and grinned into Tony’s shirt. “Always.” She paused, and then continued more seriously. “I don’t want to _think_.”

"Yeah," Tony sighed. "I know that feeling. Sure, I can be your white noise machine. No problem. Cars it is. Fair warning though, you’re not gonna want to sleep once you start hearing about this one - I’ve got a line on getting a _Tucker 48_ for the collection!”

This was probably supposed to be very impressive, but Pepper had no idea why. She yawned and curled herself in closer to Tony. “Hmm, that’s nice. Definitely tell me more about that.”

“ _Fascinating_ little bit of auto history, only 51 ever made…” Tony continued murmuring quietly and Pepper drifted off to directional headlights and variable transmissions and rear suspensions, and into sleep that - for the rest of this night at least - was mercifully free from any more almosts.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
